There appears to be no denying the Belding High School Robotics program, especially on its home turf. On Saturday a total of seven Belding teams, five from the high school and two from Belding Middle School, competed in the third annual Belding High School Robotics Tournament.

Locked behind a chain-link fence in the very center of town sits an idle piece of property that has become the epicenter of public frustration.

On the surface, the former White Consolidated Industries/Electrolux complex at 100 E. Main St. is ready to be embraced as a public park. But buried beneath that surface — 24 inches, to be exact — is a century-old history of industry, complete with contaminated soil, concrete slabs and, deeper still, contaminated ground water.

Radio static, interference and noise are all about to become a thing of the past for bus drivers at Belding Area Schools.

Communication between school bus drivers via two-way radios is a critical part of transporting hundreds of students several times a day to and from school, which is why a switch from analog to digital radios on each of the district’s 19 buses was unanimously approved by members of the Belding school board Monday evening.